~ Life, style, adventures, fashion and food…

After being in London last week and heading down again this coming week, I kept things fairly quiet this weekend. Saturday was taken up with an all-day paediatric first aid course; I worked in a kindergarten last year and completed a qualification before I started my Masters, but I need to do a 2 day first aid course before I can receive my certificate. The course fortunately wasn’t quite as dull as anticipated, although it involved the intriguing experience of performing CPR on adult, child and baby-sized dummies. Here’s to my sincere hope that I never need to use these skills!

In truly ‘special’ form I managed to do something to my back whilst doing the CPR so today’s run got transformed into a much more mellow dog-walking session. Some iPhone pics of the day…

Conditions underfoot were pretty wet & muddy!

And just down here you can see my little monsters as they go tearing off into the distance… Monty was sad as his favourite donkey wasn’t in his field today for him to gaze lovingly at!

Puppies are now both in a snit with me as the mud = bath time when we got back. Animal cruelty as far as they’re concerned!

So this week ended up being a bit hectic again; the whole job-applying process is still going in full swing and I had to go down to London to do a day’s assessment centre with a company in Canary Wharf. I also had a bunch of online tests to do – always delightful! – and am applying for other positions and preparing for another interview next week. That will also be in London so I’m ratcheting up quite the train travel miles! The upside of this is that I get to catch up with different people down in London :)

I had lunch in one of my favourite chain restaurants in the UK this visit – Wagamama. If you’re ever in the UK and want a healthy delicious lunch I would suggest heading here… Yum!

So another aspect of my returning from city life to the countryside has been a major change in wardrobe – San Francisco was all about summer clothes and sandals when I left, now I’m all about jeans, jumpers and other toasty clothes. And being in the country, things have to be fairly practical!

All the above led to my recent purchase… these Dubarry boots.

These boots were a great find in a few different ways – I have really skinny calves so finding boots that fit is tricky, and these were really narrowly cut. They also have reinforced panels on the inside of the legs so I can wear them to ride if I need to and whilst they’re practical they’re also fairly cute (in my opinion!).

The tapes at the top are handles for pulling them on, helpful given how slim cut they are! Maybe not the world’s cutest boots but super practical and warm :)

I’m sad that I’m not in the US to participate in this lovely holiday this year – I love how there’s not really a commercial side to it, just families and friends getting together to eat , drink and be merry! Of course Black Friday is a whole other thing, but for those of you across the pond, have a fabulous Thanksgiving! This card pretty much says it all…

There’s a great new furniture website that’s been gaining quite a following in the UK, and for good reason too. Made.com eschews the traditional business model of furniture retailers and instead of selling either cheap tat or pricey designer furniture, sells beautiful, well-made items at reasonable prices. They manage to do this by grouping orders for their items every 7 days and only ordering what they need to fulfill orders, and buying direct from the manufacturer. After my business Masters I find their model pretty interesting but most importantly of all, the furniture is gorgeous!

It involved my first Starbs of this year in a Christmas cup (with a cheesy message to send to my bestie after she sent me something similarly gushy on her Starbucks cup the other day. We’re SUPER cool!).

Hanging out with lovely friends – so lots of eating and drinking! And shopping and strolling around…

Fun lights outside the Saatchi Gallery…

We headed over to Notting Hill and strolled around the Portobello Road Market for a little while before the crowds got to be a bit too much!

The Union Jack and the Stars & Stripes next to each other.

Memorabilia left over from the Royal Wedding!

After braving these crowds, we decided to have some sustenance in the form of red velvet cupcakes from here…

My first ever iPhone post so here’s hoping it’s successful! Am currently on the train headed down to London for a long weekend to catch up with university friends from both my undergrad and my Masters, am very excited to catch up with them all :) Am stocked up for the ride with English magazines and a latte. I am hoping to post whilst I’m away, we’ll see if I pull that one off or not but I will hopefully be back soon!

1) This is how I now make toast… in a wire toaster on the Aga (a traditional cast iron oven that’s always on).

and related – 2) I am eating like a hobbit complete with this toast for ‘elevenses’. Perils of getting up at 6 am!

3) The only kind of cider on the go around here is most definitely alcoholic. In the UK cider is always boozy – I was a bit confused when I first arrived in the US and though Starbucks was selling alcoholic beverages alongside the coffee :).

4) I am mostly wearing these as my footwear out and about…

5) Starbucks has been replaced by DIY lattes at home…

6) And I get to snuggle with this puppy…

and this one… His life is tough, clearly, in case you couldn’t tell by his facial expression.

Flying back from San Francisco, I watched the Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris (along with MANY others – lately I don’t seem to be able to sleep on flights!). Whilst I was fairly lukewarm about the film itself, I loved how they styled Rachel McAdams’ character, Inez. She’s very casual American chic and looks effortlessly breezy as she tours Paris. According to this article, the costume designer Sonia Grande used pieces from Christian Dior, Isabel Marant, Chopard, Chanel and Hermès.